SEE ATTACTMENT
This week, you will write a comprehensive APA analysis paper using all the knowledge you have gained in BUS1150. Use what you have learned from the READ and ATTEND sections throughout the course (including unit 5) and at least three scholarly sources to address the items listed below. If you need support how to formulate your APA Analysis paper, you may refer to your APA Template under the Resource tab or contact the CPS Librarians. Please refer to the grading rubric for guidance. Upon completion, you will click on the Dropbox tab for Unit 5 and submit your paper for grading.
Be sure to support your work with at least three scholarly sources. Use in-text citations and do not self-plagiarize from the previous weeks.
· What is a product life cycle and how does the life cycle affect the market strategy of the product? Discuss the different ways prices are set for new products.
· Research a product or idea from a company such as Microsoft, Google, or Apple that failed during the steps of new product development. What step/stage did it fail? Why?
· What significance does packaging have on the consumer when comparing similar products? How are products marketed?
· Examine three products you use daily – this can be for work, school, etc. Evaluate the marketing strategy for each product including the product, price, promotion and distribution.
Personality Tests’
The hiring process is among the most complex procedures in an organization. Managers have embraced different tools to aid in the hiring process. The most common hiring tool is the use of personality tests. Personality tests inform the recruiting team about the personal traits, values, work preferences and motivation of the candidates (Kline, 2019). With the competitive landscape in the job market, it is important for employers to use the correct hiring methods to get the best candidate for the position (Kline, 2019). The personality tests are used by employers and the HR team to filter candidates who fit the career trajectory. Use of personality tests is important for various reasons. Its advantages include:
· The recruiting team understands the candidate better.
· Enhances fast recruitment process.
· It eliminates bias in the recruitment process.
· Spots the dark personality traits that could be harmful to the organization. This helps in mitigating any risks that might arise from such traits.
· It is cost effective. Personality tests are easy to implement and take a short time to determine the personality of a person (Kline, 2019).
However, personality tests are also disadvantageous to an organization. Its disadvantages include;
· Imperfection in personality test tools leads to undesired results. This could lead to misleading results hence hiring the wrong candidate for the job.
· Customization of the job specifics. Personality tests are not flexible to accommodate the requirements for different positions (Kline, 2019).
· Content quality. Most of the personality tests require use of unclear questions and content which might result to unreliability.
· Candidate response. Many fit candidates may lose the job position as they lack the skills to respond to personality tests. This leads to lose of fit candidates.
Legal Issues in Selecting Candidates
The recruitment process is crucial for an organization and requires careful consideration. For the recruitment process to be successful, it requires proper planning (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020). There are different legal issues that the human resource department must keep in mind when selecting candidates. These legal issues include;
· Legislation on criminal records (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Age discrimination in the employment act (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Equal pay act (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Federal executive order (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Immigration reform and control act (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Discriminating pregnant people (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
· Human rights act (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020).
During the selection process, it is the role of the employer to ensure that the selection process does not go against the above laws. The human resource department should be familiar with the above laws and provide free and fair selection processes.
For instance, at Mobile Alabama, the workers protested for unfair treatment by the management of the company in 2019. They complained of been treated based on their race and ethnicity, which led to discrimination of certain ethnicities. The company was summoned by the US equal employment opportunity commission. The agency investigated the unfair treatment of employees. It also led to poor productivity from the employees.
Compensation and Benefits
Benefits are any extra incentives given by the company that are not part of one’s salary (Morrell & Abston, 2018). Benefits and compensation have a significant influence on the retention and engagement of employees. A good benefit and compensation package is a motivation to employees and increases employee loyalty to the work place. From my research, I would like to work at Facebook. The company offers great compensation and benefit packages to its employees.
Facebook’s interns earn up to $7000 a month and get free housing and healthcare insurance. The founder, Mark Zuckerberg is a parent and prides in supporting parents. He ensures that parents get a conducive environment to balance between family life and work. Facebook also offers paid time off. This includes sick leaves, vacation time and personal time off. All these days off are fully paid and no deductions made for the absence. Facebook offers education and career planning benefits to its employees. This is through offering tuition reimbursements, employee growth plans, personal development trainings and career development training (Morrell & Abston, 2018). At Facebook, parents get a parental leave and a $4000 to all employees who get a new born. The work environment at Facebook is conducive for job performance. It offers an onsite barber shop, wellness center, video gaming shops and snacking base. All these benefits and compensations act as a motivation to employees hence increasing their productivity (Morrell & Abston, 2018).
The above benefits provided by Facebook have helped increase employee satisfaction in the company. Facebook is among the most considered companies tow work in the job market.
Workforce Diversity
Workforce diversity is defined as the differences in similarities in the workplace based on employees’ backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, religions, races, gender and sexualities(Cho et al., 2017). Diversity is important in the workplace for various reasons.
a. Increase in productivity. A diverse workplace comprises of people with different ideas. Therefore, through sharing of these ideas, it increases the broadness of skills among the employees. This increases their productivity.
b. Increase in cultural awareness. Diversity allows companies to learn about the perception of different cultures on their products. The company can learn from its diverse team and capitalize on the information (Cho et al., 2017). For instance, having a Chinese working for an American company is advantageous to the company as it will improves relations in the market.
c. A diverse work environment earns the company a good reputation. The company is perceived as a better employer hence is able to get good and skilled candidates easily.
d. Increased innovation and creativity. Employees with different ideas bring them together hence finding a better way of handling business and problem solving (Cho et al., 2017). This increases creativity in the company.
e. Increased marketing opportunities. Employees feel that they can easily relate to a diverse work environment. A diverse workforce creates a diverse platform for advertising and marketing products.
HRM differences
HRM decisions are thoroughly affected by a unionized organization. Unions have a great impact on the decision making process of the human resource department (Hernaus et al., 2019). Unions challenge the supervisory authority of the company and make it hard for the human resource department to formulate policies. The function of the human resource in unionized organizations is to only facilitate communication between the union officials and the management (Hernaus et al., 2019). This is through giving guidance through sharing expertise on HR procedures and arranging for meetings between the two parties.
In a non-unionized organization, the human resource has all rights to undertake HR responsibilities (Hernaus et al., 2019). This includes the recruitment, training, evaluation and following up on employee benefits and wellness. The HR has the freedom to perform all HR duties in such an organization.
References
Kline, P. (2019). Personality tests. In Companion encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 659-680). Routledge.
Morrell, D. L., & Abston, K. A. (2018). Millennial motivation issues related to compensation and benefits: Suggestions for improved retention. Compensation & Benefits Review, 50(2),107-113.
Cho, S., Kim, A., & Mor Barak, M. E. (2017). Does diversity matter? Exploring workforce diversity, diversity management, and organizational performance in social enterprises. Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 11(3),193-204.
Hernaus, T., Pavlovic, D., & Klindzic, M. (2019). Organizational career management practices: The role of the relationship between HRM and trade unions. Employee relations.
Sánchez-Monedero, J., Dencik, L., & Edwards, L. (2020, January). What does it mean to’solve’the problem of discrimination in hiring? Social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK on automated hiring systems. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 458-468).
WEEK 2
Mission Statement
A mission statement is a statement used by a company or an organization to state and define what line of business an organization is in, why it exists, and what purpose it serves (Nwachukwu & Žufan, 2017). A mission statement is an important aspect of a company as it helps employees understand the meaning of their work in the company. This is because a mission statement gives employees clear reasons for work and the goals of the company. Through the mission statement, employees can easily get the positive impacts of their daily work thus increasing their morale at the workplace (Nwachukwu & Žufan, 2017). A mission statement helps employees create a long term investment on the work culture of the company.
An effective mission statement should be clear, have a strategy and declare about the business. A mission statement should provide the company and its employees with a framework of achieving goals and objectives and the purpose of the company. The benefits of a mission statement are diverse including;
· Help attract the correct talent.
· Helps determine the performance standard.
· Guides the thinking and job performance of employees.
· Provides a stable and consistent framework to beat internal company challenges.
The mission statement for Apple Inc. is “to bring the best personal computing products and support to students, educators, designers, scientists, engineers, businesspersons and consumers in over 140 countries around the world.” (Apple Inc.) This mission statement presents the business landscape of the company (Nwachukwu & Žufan, 2017). It also gives a description of the goal of the company and what target population the company focuses on. Apple’s mission statement meets the conditions of a good mission statement. This is because it is clear. The statement also gives a clear description of the company’s activities and can be used as a guide by employees to work towards meeting the company’s goals and targets.
Functions of Management
The management of an organization plays a vital role in its performance. The main functions of the management are planning, controlling, leading and organizing.
a. Schedule. The management creates a plan that directs the company in meeting its goals and objectives. The planning process entails equal allocation of resources and responsibilities to employees (Schermerhorn & Bachrach, 2020). Through planning, timelines and standards for job completion are set.
b. Organizing. This is done by ensuring that all procedures in the company are running smoothly. Organization entails delegation of tasks as well as monitoring the tasks to ensure that they are completed (Schermerhorn & Bachrach, 2020). Through organization, the management responds to challenges and mitigates any risks that might arise.
c. Leading. The management is supposed to lead its employees into achieving the company’s targets. Leadership remains effective through conflict resolution and critical decision making. To have good leadership, the management should ensure that it boosts its fair treatment and have a strong sense of direction in the organization (Schermerhorn & Bachrach, 2020).
d. Controlling. For the above functions of the management to be achieved, the management should ensure that it works towards the success of the company. This is through constant monitoring of employees. To monitor employees, aspects such as quality of work, efficiency, performance and reliability of projects should undergo monitoring (Schermerhorn & Bachrach, 2020). This monitoring is described as control.
The most important aspect of management is the planning function. This is the proprietor of the success of the company. Unless planning is taken seriously, then all other functions of the management will not be achieved.
Sole Proprietorship Management
Sole proprietorship is the most common business model in today’s world. It entails business ownership by one person known as the sole proprietor. The sole proprietor of a business is responsible for the performance of the business and is held liable for any debts incurred in the business (Bloom et al., 2019). Unlike a corporation where the proprietors have to consult before making any business decisions, in a sole proprietorship only the owner is responsible for the decision making process. In a corporation, the management roles are distributed among the management. A corporation’s management consist of the stakeholders, board of directors and managers (Bloom et al., 2019). However, in a sole proprietorship business, the management only entails of the business owner.
In a corporation, management roles are divided among the management of the corporation. Each leader is tasked with a different management role. However, in a sole proprietorship, the business owner conducts all the roles of the management. The business owner is responsible for;
a. Hiring and firing.
b. Charting the future of the business.
c. Organizing activities.
d. Monitoring and controlling the business.
Levels of Management
Levels of management is defined as the line of division prevailing between different managerial points in a company. The levels of management of an organization is determined by the size of the company (Deineka et al., 2021). Therefore, a larger company has more levels of management than a smaller company. The levels of management of a company influence the chain of command within the company. The most common levels of management include;
a. Administrative or the top level of management.
b. Executive or the middle management level.
c. Supervisory or the lower management level.
The most important level of management in an organization is the lower level of management. This level consists of foremen, supervisors and section officers who act as the supervisory for the company. This level of management is the most crucial for a company as it directly relates withy employees and streamlines activities in the company (Deineka et al., 2021). The supervisory is responsible for execution and coordination of the company’s workflow. Through this level, projects can be easily completed and goals met. This lower level of management plays the most role in the achievement of company’s goals. Its major roles that lead to productivity directly include;
· Assigning tasks and responsibilities to the work force.
· Overseeing the quality and quantity of production.
· Maintaining an effective relationship between the management and the employees.
· Solving conflicts by acting as mediators in the company.
· Resolving workers grievances to the administration.
· Supervision of tasks in the workplace.
· Upholding decorum and discipline among the task force in the company.
· Preparing reports on employee performance after each period of a project.
· Focus on execution of deliverables in the company thus serve as role models to employees.
Types of Leadership Styles
If I was to create a business, I would use a democratic approach of leadership. This type of approach is suitable for any organization setting. The democratic approach is an inclusive approach that gives the employees the opportunity to participate in the decision making process (Alam et al., 2021). My preference for this leadership style is that it opens an opportunity for the diversity of ideas. Employees in an organization have diverse ideas that can be used to improve business activities. A democratic approach opens the ground for presentation of these ideas (Alam et al., 2021). It leads to increased innovation in the company as leaders can easily get ideas from their employees and employees are willing to correct their leaders.
Elon Musk is among the leaders that use the democratic leadership approach. Leading various multinational organizations, Elon puts the democratic leadership style into practice by allowing his employees to present their ideas freely (Alam et al., 2021). He also gives chance to employees to participate in the decision making process. Through team participation, Elon has been able to capitalize on the strengths and talents of his employees. The democratic approach has helped Elon in keeping the communication channel open in his organizations thus achieving productivity.
References
Alam, A. A., Amilia, A., Hariyati, S., & RR Ponco Dewi Karyaningsih, M.M. (2021). The Influence of Democratic Leadership Style and Work Discipline on Employee Performance. Available at SSRN 3875146.
Bloom, N., Brynjolfsson, E., Foster, L., Jarmin, R., Patnaik, M., Saporta-Eksten, I., & Van Reenen, J. (2019). What drives differences in management practices?. American Economic Review, 109(5),1648-83.
Deineka, A. V., Gorlachev, P. V., Ovcharenko, N. A., & Sidorenko, T. N. (2021). Competencies Management in an Organization. In Frontier Information Technology and Systems Research in Cooperative Economics (pp. 723-729). Springer, Cham.
Nwachukwu, C., & Žufan, P. (2017). Influence of Customer Focused Mission Statement on Customer Satisfaction. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 65(3), 1031-1038.
Schermerhorn Jr., J. R., & Bachrach, D. G. (2020). Exploring management. John Wiley & Sons
WEEK 3
Can sole proprietorship be successful for an extended duration based on its advantages and disadvantages..?
It is possible for individuals who have established sole proprietorships to be successful in extended duration or even their entire careers. Examples of the professions whose practitioners mostly establish prosperous sole proprietorships include accountants, chefs, and computer repairs services, among many others. Sole proprietorships are the simplest types of businesses to form. The owner is responsible for all aspects of the business, such as tax, losses, and liabilities. They pay tax at predetermined time that allows the business to have significant potential of growing in future. Although these types of businesses are at risk of collapsing if the owner dies or gets incapacitated, they still have the potential of running successfully for an extended duration (Nickels et al., 2018).
In a sole proprietorship, the decision concerning the progress and expansion of the business lies with the owner, unlike in other businesses where the decision is shared. The owner can strategize the operation of the business that can enable it to run for an extended duration without any disagreements. Some corporates and partnerships face a lot of disagreements, especially when it comes to decision making and that many times put the business at risk of collapsing. Sole proprietors who run businesses that offer services like computer repairs and accounting services are more capable of running the businesses in their entire career because it is easy to operate without possible obsolescence of goods. Minimized government regulations enable the sole proprietors to run their business more effectively and efficiently. Businesses subjected to regular business checks have difficulties operating freely and efficiently.
Tax benefits of a sole proprietorship versus a partnership?
Individuals who have formed sole proprietorships do not pay tax (Capouano, 2019). They only renew their businesses’ licenses after a specific duration, like a year. Profits accrued from sole proprietorships businesses are treated as income. In a sole proprietorship, you don’t need to separate taxes, unlike in a partnership where partners don’t file joint returns; one is expected to report all their business income and losses in a personal income tax return. A sole proprietor does not have anybody’s withholding tax from their paycheck. This means that their responsibility is to approximate the amount they owe in taxes at the end of the year. They make trimestral payments based on their estimation of the internal revenue service. Like any other form of business, sole proprietorships can deduct expenses like advertising and other costs incurred in running the business, which significantly reduces the amount of tax they will owe.
Many businesses opt to classify themselves as Partnerships due to tax benefits. Unlike a sole proprietorship, a partnership business does not pay income tax since taxes, losses, and other liabilities are distributed through partners. Partnership owners do not have to pay estimated costs as sole proprietors do. They will only pay quarterly proximate costs if they expect to owe more than $1,000 tax liability at the end of the year. Many people might think that partnerships are subjected to double taxation, but ideally, they are exempted from double taxation by federal law.
Describe common stockholders and preferred stockholders…..
Common stockholders are “individuals, businesses, or entities holding common shares in an organization, giving the holder an ownership stake in the corporate” (Linn, & Pinegar, 2017). Such parties are fractional owners of the corporates as they possess at least one share in the company. Common stakeholders significantly contribute to the price movements in the stock, which is based on the manner investors view the future of the corporate as much as performance is concerned. They can receive dividend payments from the firm either in cash or stock payout. However, not all corporates share dividends, but all stockholders are entitled to a share if they happen to share. Common stockholders have a right to vote on a company’s affairs. If the company runs bankrupt, common stockholders are the last people to receive anything from the liquidation.
Preferred stockholders are individuals or businesses that prioritize corporate income, which means that they are paid dividends before common stockholders. They don’t have voting rights regarding the company affair or have any voice concerning its future though they have a piece of company ownership. Investors are guaranteed a fixed dividend even when the company runs bankruptcy. They can claim their assets and earnings during corporate liquidation, unlike common stockholders who have no such rights. When the company is doing well financially and decides to distribute dividends among its stockholders, preferred stockholders get higher pay than common stockholders. They also have a right to redeem their shares from the market after a determined time.
Both types of stockholders have significant benefits depending on buying corporate shares. However, I think the preferred stockholder is more advantageous and saves the investor than the common stockholder. During liquidation, the stockholder can claim their assets and earnings, unlike common stockholders who don’t have such rights. They are also the last people to be paid whether the company is well financially or not, and yet they have the right to vote regarding the corporate’s future.
A background of a company that went a merger or acquisition (Exxon and Mobil)
The merging of Exxon and Mobil formed the world’s distinguished oil companies with a revue of $200billion. The merging deal was valued at $80billion and was merged in 1999 (Kumar, 2019). After merging, the company formed was referred to as ExxonMobil Corporate, which became the third-largest corporate globally after Electric and Microsoft. The company produced crude oil, oil products, and Natural gas. The primary reason for merging the two companies, which were significantly doing well in the market, was to assist them in finding better competences amidst low oil prices in the previous year. Low prices forced the two corporates to combine their efforts to maximize production. After the merge, Exxon focused on marketing itself in regions with significant prospective for future oils and gas discoveries. The alliance aided the consolidation of Exxon’s significant experience in deepwater exploration with Mobil’s production, which led to exploration and more discoveries in foreign countries like Nigeria and Guinea, which are rich in oils. After the merge, the company expected to make a return of $28billion. In less than a year, Exxon returns were approximated at 16%, signifying significant growth of the company.
Indeed, this was a good move for each company because the megamerger placed the companies on a global production scale. Their combined efforts financially and in terms of expertise gave them a more incredible experience that enabled the companies to focus on regions with high potential for future oil discoveries. They were able to focus on countries like Nigeria and Guinea. Their shared experience enabled them to explore deepwater likely to contain significant oils components. Currently, the company is still powerful in oil production, and its significantly doing well in the market. Merging has various benefits, such as “increasing market share, reducing the cost of operations, expanding the business into new geographic areas, and preventing the closure of unprofitable businesses” (Kumar, 2019).
References
Capouano, A. D. (2019). Tax Advantages and Disadvantages of Professional Corporations. ABAJ, 58, 758.
Kumar, B. R. (2019). ExxonMobil Merger. In Wealth Creation in the World’s Largest Mergers and Acquisitions (pp. 101-109). Springer, Cham.
Linn, S.C., & Pinegar, J.M. (2017). The effect of issuing preferred stock on common and preferred stockholder wealth. Journal of Financial Economics, 22(1),155-184.
Nickels, W. G., McHugh, J.M., & McHugh, S.M. (2018). Understanding Business 9th ed.
WEEK 4
Question 1
Anyone who comes up with a business idea has goals and strategies in place which they eventually want to meet. Moving forward in business is like planning a trip and this means that you already know where to end. However, the business road is not always straight and that also means that as a business person you ought to be prepared for difficult moments as long as you are doing business and thus find solutions to such issues. Smart business goals help one to navigate and understand the way to follow. Business goals must therefore involve specific, actionable as well as responsible parties in place who will make sure that the goals are met (Rendtorff, 2019). Some of the business goals that small business owners ought to have include the following:
Financial goals
The main goal for any given business is to make money and maximize profits while at the same time cutting down costs that are involved in the whole business process. Financial goals are very important since they help an organization to focus on generating more revenue, cut down costs as mentioned above, and set new financial targets for future growth.
Growth goals
This is another important goal for any business in the sense that every business would wish to grow from one step to another as time progresses. Growth requires a clear vision statement that can be easily achieved. Growth goals may include getting new customers, launching new products, raising brand recognition just to mention but a few.
Social goals
A business should also be able to establish or create a place in the community to serve. This means that it is important to develop social programs that can benefit local as well as global communities. With such goals, it becomes easy for your business to boot its reputation as a socially conscious company.
Businesses in most cases share foundational goals but not necessarily identical goals. The foundational goals of businesses are to provide goods and services to customers. However, other goals are specific to certain businesses and are not identical to any other. This brings in the difference between the two. Businesses need to note that when establishing the type of goals mentioned above they need to focus on adding a quantitative measure that was relevant in terms of the percentage of improvement of productivity and other parameters.
Question 2
An example of a business that has been engaged in unethical practice is United Airlines. Security officers of the company were accused of dragging a passenger off an overbooked flight. While is well known that it is legal for airlines to overbook flights and at the same, it is legal to ask passengers to get off, many people claimed that how the case was handled was wrong and that it would have been better if better measures were taken. The apology from the company was also one which did not seem to pay close attention to the matter and thus it seemed to support the employees hence it never expressed remorse or regret as far as the whole matter was concerned. In this case, customers would have wished that this case would be handled in a manner that favored the passenger since it was not his fault, and also he would have been requested to get off the flight without being dragged. This entire unethical practice led to many customers suspending their loyalty tickets, canceling flights, and booking other flights which they believed would have done better as compared to this case. Up to date, customers still talk about this case and believe that this is one of the main reasons they ought to avoid the airline.
Question 3
Having a strong work ethic in the organization makes it easy for employees since everyone wants to work for a company that they are proud of as well as with colleagues that act with integrity. Customers and clients are more likely to choose a company that showcases how to behave ethically right since this provides an added feeling of being at the right place and with the right people. Some of the tips that can help in raising the bar while at the same time creating more ethical work in the organization include the following. For instance, it is important to create a code that is going to be adhered to by everyone. Strong company values remain to be very inspiring like the way employees should dress, speak to customers, and generally present themselves at any given time. Secondly, it is important to be a good role model since sound ethical behaviors begin with the top management in the organization (Zhang, Oo & Lim, 2019).
Once these leaders have set the pace and what is supposed to be done in the company, it becomes easy for the other parties to follow suit. Another important tip is training employees on the importance of being ethical. Organizational leaders must emphasize the consequences of breaching contracts in the organization and this can be stressed by training employees to practice good morals and behavior. Also, it is vital to reward ethical behavior in the organization as a way of showing others that being ethical is important. Reporting unethical behavior is also important as it helps in creating an honest culture that is easy to manage. Creating easy ways for people to report their concerns is very important since it will ensure that such individuals will not end up being intimidated by their colleagues.
Question 4
An organization can grow globally by putting in place different measures. Firstly, it is important to research and narrow down to the markets of opportunity. This will enable a business to have a clear understanding of what direction ought to be taken. Secondly, the business should be culturally sensitive and prepare content that relates to different cultures in different countries. It is also important to learn the language used in the country in which you want to expand your business. Hiring a freelancer is a good way of learning a new language as they will easily translate it to you (Worre, 2020). Finally, it is important to focus on international marketing strategies which will help in improving the business in such locations.
References
Rendtorff, J. D. (2019). Sustainable development goals and progressive business models for economic transformation. Local Economy, 34(6),510-524.
Zhang, Q., Oo, B. L., & Lim, B. T. H. (2019). Drivers, motivations, and barriers to the implementation of corporate social responsibility practices by construction enterprises: A review. Journal of cleaner production, 210, 563-584.
Worre, E. (2020). Go pro: 7 steps to becoming a network marketing professional. Network Marketing Pro.
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